Opponents of new zoning rule don’t have a winning argument.
The links between zoning-supported housing shortages and rising rents, displacement, and homelessness have been well documented by academic researchers and illustrated by the Globe’s on-the-ground reporting.
The recent op-ed cowritten by the president of the Cambridge Citizens Coalition and the cofounder of Cambridge Voters for Good Government (“Cambridge’s new housing plan is deeply flawed,” April 5) strains to preserve expensive, exclusive neighborhoods as they were before the 1924 advent of zoning restrictions — when the majority of the city’s residential structures could be, and were, built.
The coalition, founded in 2019 to oppose Cambridge’s influential, effective Affordable Housing Overlay, continues its search for non-zoning culprits behind the housing crisis, while claiming that applying the overlay’s approach to people whose incomes are slightly above the limits set forth by the overlay will accelerate the burdensome growth of housing costs.
Source: Opinion | Debate goes on over Cambridge housing plan
